The Adventure of the Marrying Man
by Quarto
Summary: A TAB-verse tale of love, sex, marriage, gender politics, and unhelpful Watsons.
1. Chapter 1

It was all Watson's fault. Holmes was _quite_ certain of that.

They were celebrating the (vaguely satisfactory) conclusion of a case with dinner and a superb '65 Lafite at Benekey's. Tucked away in one of the very private, leather-lined booths, Watson lit his pipe, cleared his throat and began, "So, old fellow, there's something I've been meaning to discuss with you."

At which point it became clear even to someone who _wasn't_ a deductive genius that the doctor was about to embark on one of those paternal lectures to which he felt entitled based on the entire _five_ years that he was Sherlock's senior.

"It's about your… relations with Miss Hooper."

" _Doctor_ Hooper," Sherlock corrected him, eyes narrowing.

" _In this case_ ," Watson soldiered on like the Charge of the Light Brigade, "The 'Miss' is more relevant than the medical qualification. I'm… deeply pleased that you've found another companion and flatmate. And she's very lovely, once you get the mustache off her. But she _is..._ a _Miss_ , and it really doesn't do to…"

He hrumphed.

"To engage in that sort of behavior outside of matrimony. Certainly not with a young woman of decent upbringing."

Holmes rolled his eyes.

"My ' _relations'_ with Doctor Hooper are entirely innocent and aboveboard. The arrangement we share is quite similar to the one which you and I had prior to your marriage, with the added benefit of providing her with a safe haven in which she can enjoy the economical advantages of having a flatmate with no need to conceal her true sex. Nothing I have ever done with her could not be done on the corner of a public street in full view of the newspapermen."

"Really? Why not?" Watson asked in tones of honest confusion.

Holmes glared at him until he raised his hands in submission and said, "Even so. Imagine if her secret were discovered. A young woman, unmarried, living with a famously bohemian bachelor and no older relative, no chaperone? Think of what it would do to her reputation."

"In this hypothetical scenario, Watson," Sherlock asked calmly, "What do you think would occasion more negative comment: the _presumed_ loss of her moral purity, the _fact_ that she's affected male costume for more than a decade, or the _fact_ of her role as the second in command of a vengeful murder cult?"

"We're not talking about _her_ behavior here, Holmes, we're talking about _yours,_ and how it may someday affect her," the older man pronounced dryly.

And it was bloody unfortunate that Watson was, obnoxiously, right. If Molly's secrets ever were discovered,her actual _crimes_ would pale in comparison to the _scandal_ in the eyes of the world. Nobody would think twice about a man in his position taking a mistress… but said mistress? Would be immediately expelled from any society with the tedious desire to be respectable.

Damn Watson. Sherlock took another drink of wine and snapped defensively, "I am not an ordinary man, Watson. I have never claimed to be one, and while my living arrangements may not be ordinary either they are not subject to your criticism or judgement."

Watson shrugged.

"Always your way. Just… it's a bit rum, that's all. Ah, here's the dessert cart. I'm for a semolina pudding, you?"

* * *

Molly had taken off her mustache, and the unfashionably high collar which she was forced to wear to conceal the slenderness of her neck. Otherwise she was wearing her cranberry-red dressing gown, shirtsleeves and brown trousers, reclining on the sofa in front of the fire and reading the new Joseph Conrad.

Sherlock followed her example and exchanged his jacket for his dressing gown. Then he paced the room, buff silk fluttering behind him, until finally Molly marked her page and said mildly, "You're in a pet, aren't you? Case didn't go well?"

"Actually, yes," he said, stopping dead, " _The butler did it._ I hate when that happens… though it technically doesn't happen as often as you'd expect, considering the closeness of the relationship and the intense motivations it must provide for murder. But it's cliche and-"

"Therefore never makes it to the pages of _The Strand_?"

"The drivel that Watson publishes is of no concern to me, the offensive ignorant walrus-faced-"

"Oh, you've quarreled! I'm sorry," Molly said, "What happened?"

Holmes snorted and flung himself into his chair.

"He made objectionable assumptions about- well, about you and me, if you must know."

Molly set her book down and narrowed her eyes and asked, "What _sort_ of assumptions?"

Holmes hesitated. Hooper didn't quite fit into any of the stock categories in which people were placed. You obviously couldn't treat her like an ordinary woman (by being chivalrous, helpful, and faintly patronizing) but yet conversations that he'd never hesitate to have with another man (or with Mary, who was _also_ in a unique category) somehow seemed… coarse.

Finally he had to say, "He believed that we are lovers and said it was inappropriate for me to behave in such a fashion with a decent woman."

"Which, I mean, it's clearly _false_ ," Molly said, "Though I don't see quite how it's objectionable or offensive."

"Hooper," Sherlock began, "Not having been brought up a gentleman you may not be aware of the fact that one of those would _never_ take advantage of an unwilling lady."

"Ideally, though in practice I think there may be some slippage, but-"

"And you are a Sapphist, so obviously-"

"I am a _what_?" Molly interrupted him.

"It's… it's the polite term for a woman who prefers the intimate company-"

"I know what a bloody lesbian is, Holmes. But why would you think _I'm_ one?"

Sherlock hesitated, and said, "The fact you dress in men's clothing? And the fact that you joined a society dedicated to killing us?"

"Founded," Molly frowned, "I _founded_ that society, with Louisa and Emilia. I wear male clothes because doing that enables me to practice my chosen profession. And we wouldn't have had any reason to kill any of you if we were inclined to avoid your company entirely. _And_ as I recall your old friend not-her-face dressed famously well and entirely _a la_ feminine _mode_."

"Ah," Sherlock sighed, "Always something I miss."

"I mean if we're slanging around allegations of homosexuality there's always been speculation about you and Doctor Watson."

"Certainly not," Sherlock snorted, "He's very short and smells of iodoform."

"I'm shorter than he is, and smell, mostly, of formaldehyde."

"Well," Sherlock hesitated, "On you it's… different."

"I _see_."

Molly considered for a moment, and asked, "So the reason we _aren't_ lovers is that you believed I wouldn't care for it, due to my alleged preference for other women?"

"Um…" Sherlock could feel a blush covering his face.

"Because that's _interesting_ ," Molly said. Rising to her feet, she slipped off her dressing gown, shrugged her braces off her shoulders. She stepped over towards Sherlock, undoing the top button on her shirt as she came.

"Whatever are you doing, Hooper?" he asked leerily.

"My dear fellow, what _does_ it look like?"

* * *

The Watsons were actually acting like normal people for once and were spending the Sunday morning taking an inventory of John's surgery. Mary was counting bandages, John was noting (pleasedly) that he would need to buy far less laudanum than he used to which meant that Sherlock probably _was_ actually abstaining. Then the detective himself walked in, unannounced, as was his custom.

He was really very ruffled, and Mary cocked her head and said, "Oooh, I never knew it, but your hair is _quite_ curly _,_ isn't it, Sherlock? You look like Lord Byron."

"He looks like he's been dragged backwards through a hedgerow," Watson snorted, "What's happened, Holmes?"

Sherlock gazed at nothing and uttered solemnly, "I… I have compromised Doctor Hooper."

"Oh, how lovely," Mary exclaimed, clapping her hands together.

"Mary!" Watson hrumphed.

"Oh, what, John, they're _so_ well suited. And Molly's so nice. Obviously she can't openly support the cause given her… particular situation, but did you know she gave me _five pounds_ for the campaign last month?"

"How," Watson asked, " _Exactly_ is that relevant, Mary?"

"I suppose it's not, really, but she can't make very much money working for Scotland Yard and it goes to show how generous she is."

"Well now that she's gone into keeping she should have even more cash to spare for women's suffrage," Watson replied snidely.

"I haven't taken her into _keeping,_ " Sherlock said, although he sounded rather uncertain.

Mary blinked up at Sherlock from her kneeling position on the floor in front of the supply cupboard, and glanced over at John.

"Well, I mean, Sherlock-" she said slowly, "You live with her, you _heavily_ subsidize her rent, and now you two are… mmhmphg."

This last noise was startlingly indelicate but got the point across _quite_ well.

"She's your mistress, mate," Watson said bluntly, "Unless you do the right thing."

Sherlock stood stock-still, as he did occasionally when there was a critical calculation to perform.

"You… you are correct."

Straightening his lapels, Sherlock ran a hand through his ruffled hair to get it out of his face.

"You are entirely correct. I suppose there is nothing for it. I had never intended to embroil myself in domesticity, but there's no other honorable course available to me."

"Um, Sherlock, I don't know quite what you're planning on-" Mary began, rising to her feet and brushing dust off her skirts.

"I must get married," Sherlock said simply, "Thank you, both. I'll see you later. After."

With that, he left. Mary scowled at John, and said, "You realize that what happens when he goes to her with that will be _your_ fault, right?"

"What?"

* * *

"You know, Holmes, generally in a shotgun wedding you aren't expected to point the shotgun at your own head," Molly said, scowling.

(Later, once he'd had a bit more practice at this sort of thing, Sherlock acknowledged that beginning a proposal of matrimony with, "Well, Hooper, it's unfortunate, but given that it has happened I suppose now we're really obligated to marry. Would you prefer a special licence or would you rather wait out the traditional reading of the banns and so forth?" was probably not the best way to go about it.)

Sherlock blinked at her.

"I have never in my life tried to trap or trick a man into any sort of intimacy against his will, especially not marriage," she continued, "There is no _obligation_ here. You are a free agent, as always."

Odd. He hadn't previously thought that Molly was covered in invisible spikes and yet they were quite perceptible now.

"I've… offended you."

"Quite a lot, actually, yes."

"Why?"

"Because apparently it took _one_ incident where we enjoyed one another to make you immediately throw me back into in the pile of 'women,' to be protected and patronized. I would never marry any man who didn't… who didn't love me."

She straightened her slight shoulders.

"No harm will come of it. Nobody knows about it."

"Ah-"

"And therefore you need do _nothing."_

Sherlock hesitated, and asked softly, "And the moral aspect of it?"

Molly snorted.

"You and I have never felt subject to conventional morality, Holmes. You weren't my first and I'm damn sure I wasn't yours… why worry about 'morals' now?"

Sherlock considered, "I suppose because you're… different."

"In what way?"

Silence.

Molly smiled cynically.

"If you ever figure out precisely how then we can deal with the morality then. But if you do sincerely feel it's wrong then… we need never repeat it."

"I suppose not."

Though two weeks later when she came and sat in his lap one evening and said, "Though talking of morality there is something to be said for being hanged as a sheep rather than a lamb," it became quite difficult to remember exactly what his objections had been.

* * *

"It happened again," Sherlock said, stalking into John and Mary's dining room as they were taking their breakfast.

" _Rum_ ," Watson pronounced smugly.

"John Watson, you horrid old hypocrite," Mary scolded him.

"I beg your pardon?" Watson said, twitching his mustaches in irritation.

"It's not as though you were some… bastion of moral rectitude when _you_ were a bachelor," she replied, "Remember the sofa, at Mrs. Forrester's? When someone rang the doorbell and we thought we were going to get caught?"

"Well… well that was _entirely_ different," Watson spluttered, "I had made, and you had accepted, a proposal of honorable marriage. We _were_ actually married less than a week later. It was simply a bit of an… anticipation of the ceremony."

Mary frowned at him, and in the same tones a professional gambler might say, "Full house, kings over nines," said, "And then of course there was that cab ride you and I took back from that steamboat chase on the Thames. Which you fictionalized in "The Sign of Four" by leaving out my presence entirely but during which you were _apparently_ nobly planning to never see me again afterwards, since as a poor man you couldn't offer yourself to an heiress."

"Ah," Watson said quietly, clearly remembering.

"Ah _indeed_ ," Mary purred. The Watsons' maid came in just then, and Mary said, smiling, "You're too late for us to feed you, Sherlock, but would you care for a cup of tea, or coffee?"

"Coffee would be very kind, thank you, Mary," Sherlock said, taking a seat at the table.

"A fresh cup for Mr. Holmes,please, Susan?" Mary asked.

The housemaid took her cue and left the dining room. Sherlock commented, "You lot were married barely two months after you first met, and for three weeks of that he wasn't even speaking to you because he was upset that you were concealing the fact that you work for my brother."

Mary cocked her head and asked, "And?"

"And nothing, I'm just impressed you managed to squeeze in all these encounters."

"In my defense," John said, a faint smile on his face, "I was quite _desperately_ in love."

"Were you?" Mary said, and the joyful shine on _her_ face made Sherlock look away, feeling that he was seeing something that was too close to the heart to be shared.

"Oh, rather. And desperation _can_ make a man act the cad, you know."

"Which _is,_ sometimes... appreciated. By the lady in question," Mary laughed.

"Very well, I know when I'm bested. Holmes, bugger off, and do present my fondest regards to Doctor Hooper when next you see her," Watson said, flinging his napkin onto the table and rising to his feet.

"I- my coffee hasn't arrived yet!" Sherlock protested.

"Try the Turk's Head, in Pembroke Square. Excellent cuppa. Or, in fact, intercept Susan and tell her you'll take your coffee with her in the kitchen. I need to kiss my wife now and I'd prefer not to have an audience."

Notes: This fic was inspired by an amazing sketch by artbylexie at tumblr. And after trying every possible way to scramble the URL so this site would let me post it, I've given up. If you'd like to see it, there's a link in the archive of our own equivalent of this story. Same username, same title.


	2. Chapter 2

Take two, he began with, "I've come to the conclusion, Hooper, that we really _ought_ to get married."

Molly didn't look up from the corpse (floater pulled from the Thames, lifelong dipsomaniac, embezzler, dull), but she rolled her eyes and said, "Are you _seriously_ going to do this every time? It's going to get irritating."

" _Not_ out of obligation or convention," Sherlock said, folding his arms across his chest and smiling smugly, "But because you and I are uncommon well suited to one another."

She did stop, at that, setting down the bone saw.

"Consider, for example, that you and I both have a strong professional interest in both pathology _and_ murder. Despite your fussiness, we share our domicile in peace and comfort-"

"I really don't think that 'No experiments in the bathtub' counts as 'fussy,' Holmes," Molly frowned.

"You don't mind my erratic habits, bad temper, and consuming career. I don't mind that you wear men's clothes and spend your days up to your elbows in corpses. And I believe…"

He lowered his voice to a growl.

"That our new activities are _quite_ mutually satisfactory. Therefore we should marry. Who else are we likely to meet who's preferable?"

A faint blush had spread over Molly's cheeks, but she frowned and said, "Shall I begin the list of reasons why not with the fact that we're both, nominally, male? Or end there?"

"You'd have to switch back, but-"

"I _cannot_ do that, Holmes. I'm sorry, it's very kind of you, but it just isn't possible. Now unless you have something to contribute to this post-mortem I'm afraid I will have to ask you to leave."

Molly came home very late that night, to find Sherlock lounging in the doorway.

"I believe," he said, undoing her cravat and tracing his lips over her throat, "That I can _convince_ you."

Molly pursed up her lips into a _moue_ , thought about it, and said, "I suppose you can try."

So Sherlock flung her over his shoulder and carried her to the bedroom, ignoring her shrieks of laughter.

* * *

Late one night there came a knock at the door, just about the hour a man gives his first yawn and glances at the clock. Watson rolled his eyes and kept on with his newspaper. Mary put her needlework (Well...leatherwork. Well... she was making lead-weighted coshes to distribute to the more reliable ladies of the campaign in advance of next week's march on the houses of Parliament. The committee had agreed that no violence would be _initiated_ , but that outrages against the persons of the members were to be met with force) down in her lap and made a little face of disappointment.

"A patient!" said she, "You will have to go out."

"Shan't," John replied briefly, "I know that knock."

And indeed, far sooner than anyone could have reached the front door, the rattle of lockpicks could be heard. A consulting detective inveigled himself into the dim parlor, and said, "She's… like an irresistible succubus, in a waistcoat. I don't quite understand how it keeps happening but it definitely does."

"A professional tip, Mr. Holmes," Mary replied dryly, "When things like this 'happen' it's generally best if they keep 'happening' all night long rather than the gentleman leaving midway through to go annoy his friends."

"Mary!" Sherlock bristled.

"Yes, Mary, _really_ ," Watson agreed, turning the page of the newspaper.

"Thank you, John-" Sherlock began, before Watson interrupted him to say, "Clearly he accidentally stumbled and fell on her. It could happen to anyone."

"Oh, very nice," Sherlock spat, " _Both_ of you are conspiring to mock my suffering now."

"You don't… actually seem to be _suffering_ all that much, Sherlock," Mary said, "And we can't help it if it's hilarious. Though you two really _should_ try to formalize this arrangement before she ends up pregnant."

Sherlock exhaled through his nose, and replied, "Despite your direful example, Mrs. Watson, it is entirely possible to successfully operate a contraceptive."

You could have heard a pin drop. Watson slowly lowered his paper, and asked, "What was that, Holmes?"

Mary, meanwhile, made repeated "pfft" noises as she walked to the secretary in the corner, from which she took a battered clothbound memorandum-book. Though this book contained nothing more secret than the washing record and minor household notes, she always wrote it in a variety of elaborate ciphers in order to irritate Sherlock, who tended to rummage through other people's private possessions when left unattended. She opened it to the last completed page, then paged back.

And then further back.

Then she put a hand up to her mouth and sat heavily back down on the sofa and said, "John… he might actually be right."

"Of course I'm right," Sherlock said indignantly, "Puffy-sleepy-nauseated… _expectant_. You really didn't know?"

"It's been nearly three months," Mary said, sounding lost.

" _Three?"_ Watson spluttered, "How did you miss that?"

Mary flung her hands into the air bewilderedly and said, "Well, I mean… seven years of, of _nothing_ so I'd given up and I'm forty- oh, dear God, I'm _forty_ \- if I thought about it at all I guess I was thinking it was the start of the climacteric."

"How did _you_ miss that, Watson? You're a physician, allegedly. Didn't you notice Chadwick's sign?" Sherlock asked.

Watson folded his paper, sat up very straight, and said coldly, "I do not put her on an examination table under a strong light, Holmes."

"What's Chadwick's sign?" Mary asked, confusedly looking between the two men.

"Never mind," Watson said.

"Bluish discoloration of the vaginal mucosa occurring as early as the sixth week of pregnancy," Sherlock said smartly.

Mary's eyes got wide, and she gasped, "It changes _colors_?!"

John scrambled to his feet and sat next to her on the sofa, nearly knocking Sherlock over as he went, "It's _very_ subtle, Holmes got that out of a book and he's got no bloody _idea_..."

"But… _everything_ changes," Mary said, reaching out desperately. John took hold of her hands and folded them together in his.

"I suppose it does," he said, "But… it's a _happy_ change. Isn't it?"

"Oh, God, _yes_ ," Mary said, her tears starting to flow.

Holmes, eventually, let himself out.

* * *

Some time later, somehow, without Sherlock knowing it, the third formal marriage proposal degenerated into a shouting match, only terminated when Mrs. Hudson slammed a broom handle onto her ceiling and screeched up at them, "Pipe down, you two."

Molly accused Sherlock of being a delusional idiot who only cared about himself to the point that he'd want to ruin her life and enslave her simply in order to ensure his own domestic contentment. For Sherlock's part, he possibly called her a heartless trollop who only viewed him as a sex aid and didn't give a damn about his feelings which just incidentally, _Molly,_ were not all that easy for him to come to grips with.

When the pounding from below broke into their argument, Molly glared at him, fire in her eyes, before stalking up the stairs to her room and slamming the door. For his part Sherlock had a furious smoke of his pipe and then went to bed himself, feeling tension in his jaw and an odd pain in his chest.

After an hour, candlelight crept under his door, and he heard Molly's quiet knock.

"It's not locked," Sherlock said, after consideration.

Molly came in and closed the door behind her. Sherlock shifted off to one side of his bed and made space for her. Setting her candle on the table at his bedside, Molly blew it out and climbed in with him.

She seldom shared his bed except when she 'shared his bed,' and feeling her soft warmth at his side made Sherlock realize that this was a foolish omission on their part. He got an arm round her back, and she rested her head where his shoulder became his chest.

"I withdraw 'trollop,'" he said eventually into the darkness, "It was both untrue and unkind of me to say."

"I don't really think you want to enslave me. And obviously you aren't an idiot, you're the cleverest man I know," Molly said in a thick voice, "Holmes, are you truly so unhappy with our life as it is?"

Sherlock sighed, and ran his fingers through the short curls at the nape of Molly's neck.

"There are aspects of it that I dislike, yes. I don't much care to kiss you when you're wearing your mustache, for example. It's unbearably ticklish, I've no idea how Mary stands it. And…"

He considered how to say it, and slowly began, "Ever since Watson's learned that Mary is _enciente_ , he's been… terribly proud, and protective of her. As for _protective_ , it's absurd, she once killed a man using only her thumbs-"

"I believe Mary was being facetious about that."

"Mmm," Sherlock agreed, though he believed no such thing, "But when I watch him watch her I can't help but think that it would be… good, if I could stand in front of the world and say, 'This particular one, with her beauty and her gentleness and her diamond-like mind and her surgeon's hands...' Incidentally, I'm speaking about _you_ now, not Mary-"

"Yes, I've got that."

"Anyway, to say, ' _This_ one chose _me_ , above all others.' I'm not accustomed to feeling envious of Watson, and I don't care for that either. But no, I'm not truly unhappy. I never could be, with you."

Molly buried her face in his chest, and mumbled, "Six years."

Lifting her head again, she chuckled bitterly, "Six _bloody_ years. That's how long after I started that they first began letting girls into the medical schools. If I had just been a bit more patient and tough I could have been one of the pioneers-"

"And you'd have been stuck in pediatrics or obstetrics, not pathology. Never pathology. Who knows when Scotland Yard will allow women to work there?"

"But it's too late for even that, now. If I admitted to being a woman, that would be… it. The scandal would be enormous, I'd never be allowed to work again, even in the hospitals that accept women. I'd lose everything I love, besides you."

Sherlock kissed the top of her head.

"It would be unconscionably selfish of me to ask you to. I know better than most how the work can define who you are."

Though part of him did, secretly, sort of, wish that she would.

"I would _so_ like it if I didn't have to pretend. If I could proudly say, "I've chosen this man, above all others." If I could be myself here _and_ out there," Molly sniffled.

"Molly in the morgue," Sherlock singsonged softly to her.

"At the dead center of town," she agreed.

Sherlock got his other arm around her, and murmured, "But that isn't the world in which we live."

* * *

Molly came home to Baker Street, sore-footed and tired and in desperate need of a brandy. She'd developed an excellent reputation since working with the Met, but the trouble of an excellent reputation was that it put you in _demand_ , and four post-mortems in a single day was just a bit much, thank you. It had given her plenty of quiet time to think, though, and therefore she was _content_ … just bone weary.

Holmes's stick and tall black silk hat were on the rack, and Molly smiled at the thought that he was home. She nodded to Mrs. Hudson on her way in and trudged up the stairs to 221B, only to find a very tall woman standing in the parlor, adjusting her veil in the mirror.

"Oh, good evening, Madam," Molly said, automatically dropping her voice into the raspy 'Manfred' register, "Are you here to see Mr. Holmes? I'm not sure where he's got to…"

She trailed off, because the client had turned around in a swish of aubergine silk skirts, and there, towering his accustomed eight inches above her, was Sherlock. He smiled down at her benignly through the netting of his fashionable bonnet.

"Good Lord," Molly said.

"What do you think?"

Molly struggled to find the words, and finally said, "You're… you're such an _attractive_ man, Holmes. I don't see how it is that you manage to make such an alarming looking woman."

"It _is_ rather impressive. But being… less than perfectly beautiful... is actually more appropriate for the case," Holmes acknowledged, turning back to the mirror and pursing up his lips.

"Did you stitch ruffles into your corset cover?" Molly asked curiously, noticing a subtle curved swell to his chest that was _not_ there normally. _That_ had been one of the chores she'd been glad to leave behind her, though it always secretly annoyed her that she didn't really need to do much to pass for a man in that regard herself.

"Certainly not," he said, sounding offended, "The _modiste_ did that."

"Naturally," Molly chuckled, because of _course_ he wouldn't ever think to do his own dressmaking, "What's the case?"

He blushed. Holmes factually, blatantly blushed. And then he took a small velvet box off the mantelpiece and shyly extended it to her, saying, "The Adventure of the Marrying Man."

"Oh, no," Molly said, taking a step backwards in alarm.

"Oh, yes. Now hear me out, Hooper," Sherlock said sternly, "I've done a great deal of thinking on this subject and come to the conclusion that you _are_ right. Molly Hooper can't marry, not openly, not without losing everything else in her life that matters to her. But when it comes down to it, neither can Sherlock Holmes."

He sighed, and Molly could hear the faintest bit of wistfulness to his next words, and despite herself, she reached out and gently squeezed the hand that wasn't holding the ring.

"I have… far too many enemies, and the rare people I am known to care for have targets painted on their backs. Both John and Mary have been threatened because of their affiliation with me and, if you'll pardon me, you're far less capable than they are to deal with that sort of danger."

Molly shrugged. She knew that. There was a reason the brides had chosen stealth and anonymity for their operations.

"But," Sherlock continued, " _Manfred_ Hooper is an entirely free agent whose intimate life concerns nobody but himself. Thus-"

He extended his arms out, placing all of his feminine finery on display.

"Wilhelmina. Cousin of Sherlock, single at an advanced age because of her striking physical appearance-"

Molly laughed a little bit. She couldn't help it.

"Holmes, are you seriously proposing you would live your public life as a woman from now on?"

"By no means," he scoffed, "Do you know how _fortunate_ I was to be born male? I entirely see why you prefer it. This would simply be for the purposes of the ceremony and the banns and all that rot."

"Or," Molly said dryly, "And I know that this isn't quite as sensible as going to church in full drag and lying about our identities in front of the Lord, _I_ had the thought that… we could take a trip."

Smiling, she reached out, took the ring box from him and set it on the mantel. Then Molly took both Sherlock's hands in hers.

"We could go, for example, to Paris. Or to New York, or Gretna Green, or really any place where we aren't known. And there, I could wear a dress, and my wig... and if I may, that hat that you've got on, it's the sweetest bonnet I've ever seen… and there, _Margaret_ Hooper and _William_ Holmes can be married. It won't be public, it won't be known… but it will be _true_."

Sherlock looked terribly uncertain, though that was probably enhanced by his dress.

"You… you really want that?"

"Life is very short, Sherlock. And when it's over, this is what I want us to have been."

So it went.

* * *

They finally managed it in a small cliffside village in Apulia, in the aftermath of a case involving the forgery of one of Italy's most expensive wines and its replacement by the rather rough reds of the region. The case was an excuse, obviously. Neither of them gave a damn about rich idiots being fooled, but it was an excellent opportunity to take a holiday.

The Watsons had wished to be in attendance, but they'd left it long enough that Mary's state made it inadvisable for her to travel, and indeed upon Sherlock and Molly's return to England, they were able to greet the very small, very perfect, very _angry R_ osamund Watson for the first time.

The _sindaco_ was an elderly man, who after performing the brief civil ceremony clasped their hands together in his gnarled ones, and said in a faint voice, "My children, this is the most beautiful day of your lives."

Which was appallingly sentimental but not, they had to admit, entirely false.

In the morning, Molly woke before Sherlock. Wrapping a sheet around herself, she walked out onto the balcony of their hotel to watch the sun rise over the strait of Otranto. After a while, she could hear her _husband_ moving behind her, and she smiled.

A pair of strong arms wrapped around her, and a unshaven, bristling cheek rubbed against hers.

"Good morning, Doctor Holmes."

Molly _laughed._

"Good morning, Mrs. Hooper."

Notes:

By 1896 women had been able to attend medical school in the UK, on a small scale, for about twenty years. Therefore I'm aware of my errata and did it anyway since this is all modern-day Sherlock's drug-induced hallucination and maybe he just didn't know that, _okay?_ The beginning of the scene in which Sherlock acts as the angel of the annunciation to Mary is taken quite directly from the beginning of "The Man With the Twisted Lip," and some details of the Watson courtship are from "The Sign of Four," both by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. In TAB the Watsons seem to be recently married but in Conan Doyle-verse they got hitched probably more like in 1889, and I have chosen that.


End file.
